He was not alone in it. Many lords thought it their due to have whatever women caught their eyes. But Rhys had first seen it happen to a woman desired by Roger Mortimer. He had been only fourteen at the time, and the injustice had branded his young heart. He had watched that woman's anguish as Mortimer trapped her into submission. He had heard her screams while she birthed the dead bastard of the man whom she loathed.
Details surged, specifically and clearly, out of the place in his memories where they had retreated long ago.
A beautiful woman, dark haired and fair skinned, slowly descending a staircase …His uncle sitting by the fire, refusing to watch … A silence so deep that one could hear the starving stomachs growl.
No one went to support her in the short walk to the waiting knight outside. Everyone's life depended on her accepting the shame, but the women did not want to be touched by it. The men did not want it to appear that they agreeably handed her over.
This final injustice infuriated him. If his father and uncle would not fight, they could at least give her comfort. And so he had gone to her, so she would not be totally alone.
Before they reached the knight, she had spoken. “Tell my husband that I will remain untouched in the ways that matter.”
He had admired her strength, but the cost of that resolve had been high. When Mortimer finally tired of her, she returned with a soul so numb that nothing could ever touch it again.
He stood in the grass twenty paces from the bench. The vivid images had dazed him, and had darkened his mind the way they still could when they unexpectedly emerged.
Mortimer gestured him forward. “You take your time, mason. I sent a summons for you two days ago.”
“I was not there, and had other matters to attend as well. Please do not send messengers to the city again. I am at Westminster often enough for you to find me here.”
Mortimer's mouth pursed in annoyance. “You are overbold for a craftsman.”
“A timid man is of no use to you.”
Mortimer did not invite him to sit on the bench, but Rhys did anyway, to show just how overbold he could be. He resented this summons. Like that woman, he sensed that he was being drawn into a game that he could not win.
“I have nothing to tell you. It has only been several days,” he said.
Mortimer considered that. “It is too quiet.” He squinted thoughtfully. “Do you know Addis de Valence?”
“I have met the Lord of Barrowburgh a few times.” He had more than met him. Addis was married to Moira, the woman who had given him the garments for Joan.
“I am told that he is in the city. In the heat of the summer. No lords use their London houses now.”
“Sir Addis is no enemy to you. He fought bravely for the Queen's cause. He held London for her. He took no part in Lancaster's uprising against you two years ago.”
“But he has not come to court. He has not presented himself to the Queen.”
“He is a rough man, not given to little courtesies. He has a new son. Perhaps that distracts him.”
“You know much of this man whom you have met only a few times.”
“His house is in my ward. And I know his wife fairly well, from before their marriage.”
Mortimer grinned lewdly. “Do you now? A lush woman, nay? Serf-born, it is said. Such women are the best, the most passionate. She caught my eye, I will admit. If you know the wife, you can visit there. I am most curious about Addis. He keeps his own counsel too well. One never knows where he stands.”
“I doubt that he will confide in me. We are not friendly.”
“You served together in the Queen's cause. That makes a bond. Use it, and your friendship with the wife. See what you can learn. Something is brewing. I can smell it.” Mortimer appeared truly concerned. “Find out what it is, and you will have more than you ever dreamed. Whatever you want.”
There was nothing more to discuss, so Rhys gladly left. The meeting had unsettled him. Even without the Queen's favor, Mortimer was lord to a quarter of the realm. He was not a man to cross. He was also the kind of patron every builder needed if he sought to make his mark.
More than you ever dreamed. Whatever you want. He dreamed of palaces and cathedrals and town halls. He dreamed of carving statues the way he imagined them and not the way the priests demanded. He dreamed of leaving a legacy in stone that would stand through time, so that ages hence people would see it and wonder whose mind and art had brought it into being.
Whatever you want. The words repeated in his head, over and over. He would not be the first man to align himself with power for his own purposes. Nor the first to put aside principles to achieve his goals.
Fortunately, he would not be tempted to. Nothing was brewing, and if anything ever did, Addis de Valence would not be in the middle of it.
He collected his horse and headed home. He took a long route, meandering from market to market, more aware than he wanted to admit that he was hoping to see a blond woman selling crockery.
She had been filling his head for two days. He kept seeing her face and body. Images of her breathless surprise always provoked an immediate arousal. The parted red lips and the glistening eyes and startled gasps could immerse him in a sea of desire.
I have never wanted to. Maybe not before, but she had wanted to with him. It had been very natural to have her in his arms under the tree. She fit in them as surely as her body had molded against his in her sleep.
He could not remember ever being so interested in a woman. Not just in bedding her, although that impulse also was stronger than normal. He wondered about her. She had been seasoned by loss and life, and experience had produced a rich complexity that intrigued him. He worried, too. Twice now she had needed help. If it happened again she had no one but a young brother to look after her.
Certainly that tiler she worked for would not aid her. He might even send her into the city again with more flawed goods, and her punishment the second time would be worse than the first. Someone should explain to George Tiler that letting a woman answer for his bad craft was cowardly, and that abandoning her to be thrown in the gutter after a day in the stocks was despicable.
Aye, someone should definitely have a few words with the man about that.
It was all that he needed. Just an excuse, like his consideration this morning that he needed new cups, and that fired, thin-walled ones would be nice.
He abruptly turned his horse and retraced his path. He aimed for London Bridge, and the town of Southwark.
The tile yard stood on a finger of land that jutted into the Thames about a mile upriver from Southwark. As Rhys neared, he could see workers carrying trays of tiles out of a long thatched building, and others waist deep in a huge vat, stomping to separate clay from soil. The workers were women, all of them wearing nothing but sleeveless shifts and kerchiefs.
A small cottage backed up on the road, and tiny shacks flanked the water's edge around the works itself. Rhys tied his horse to a dead tree behind the house and walked around it to its door.
A sandy-haired man rested in the shadow of its eaves, slouched on a bench beside a bladder hanging from a peg near the door. His red-stained beard and liquid eyes declared him drunk already, and it was barely past midday. He watched the women while he sipped from a chipped crockery cup.
He did not notice his visitor until Rhys stood beside him. For a moment he appeared uncertain whether to welcome or resent the interruption of whatever he contemplated about the women. Rhys had no trouble imagining what it was, and that sent his temper churning.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Rhys. I am a mason and builder.”
George brightened. “Then you come looking for tiles. Welcome, welcome.” He gestured to the bench for Rhys to sit, then held up his cup with a questioning expression.
Rhys looked down on the dirty, wine-stained drunk. He remembered Joan suffering from thirst in the stocks, and deadly anger leaked into his head. “I find wine too drying in the summer. In fact, I
find it over-warm out here. Can we speak in your cottage?”
“There's a fine river breeze here, and the view is very pleasant.” George smirked lewdly toward the half-naked women.
“I would prefer the cottage.”
George shrugged and led the way into his home. Rhys followed, and closed the door behind him.
“Now, how many tiles you be needing, Master Rhys?”
“I did not come to buy tiles.”
“Not tiles, eh? Odd you should want to come in here, then, if what you want to bargain for is out there. Or maybe you already know which one you favor?”
So George did a little whoremongering on the side. Rhys resisted the urge to end the conversation at once by breaking the man in two.
“I did not come to buy a woman, but to speak about one. Four days ago one of them spent the day in London's stocks with your tiles at her feet.”
“She fired them wrong, and tried to hide the results in among good ones. I assure you that my goods can be trusted. It was a rare occurrence that will not happen again. When she returned, I chastised her soundly.”
Rhys's temper snapped. He reached for the neck of the tunic in front of him. With a sweeping swing, he crashed the stunned tiler up against the door. Holding George by his neck, he forced his face into the planks.
“If you beat her—”
“Nay! Not beat… I did not.…” George's squashed face twisted with fear. “I spoke with her is all.”
“Even that took gall. You sent her in to take your punishment, you bastard. You did not even come for her when it was over.”
“I didn't know! She didn't come back, and I figured she'd run off, to escape her debt to me. Had my wagon, didn't she, and all those tiles. I thought she'd stolen it all, not ended up in the stocks.”
“If you thought that you would have looked for her.” Rhys pulled George away from the door and held him up by his tunic's collar. “What debt? You spoke of her debt to you.”
“I have her mark. She signed an indenture. Five years.”
He threw George aside. “Find it. I want to see this mark.”
George nodded nervously and poked and dug in a trunk. Finally a stained folded parchment emerged. He offered it with a shaking hand.
Rhys held the document to the window's light. It looked legal. The little fool had indeed put her name to it. It bound her to the tiler for five years in return for ten shillings and the use of a cottage.
He hated indentures, and the way they took advantage of the desperate. A person should not have to choose between freedom and survival. It was not an apprenticeship that Joan had acquired with her mark, as was the decent use of such things. She had signed herself into slavery for little more than shelter.
Fury sliced through his head. He truly wanted to punch George's face in. The tiler cringed, as though he could see it was coming.
“A handsome bargain for you, George. She is more skilled than most master tilers, certainly more skilled than you.”
George looked insulted despite his cowering pose. “She is skilled, but hardly like me. She is useful to the works, but not so much more than the others.”
“I think that she runs the works, while you sit and get drunk and leer at her. And let other pigs leer, too.”
“I run the works. It is my craft, like my father's. She is useful, but not necessary.”
“Than you will not mind losing her.” It was out before he even knew he was thinking it.
George frowned with confusion. Rhys put an iron grip on his shoulder and waved the indenture in front of his face. “You gave her ten shillings and a hut. I say that is worth no more than one pound altogether. Don't you agree?”
George appeared ready to agree to anything if it kept him alive. Rhys hadn't decided that part yet.
“I will send you that much. A man will come with the money tomorrow, and you will sign this over to me. Do you accept?”
“I accept.”
“One more thing.”
“Whatever you want. Just don't—”
“Did you ever force her, or sell her to some man? While she lived on this property and slaved for you, did you hurt her?” He pictured that as he asked, saw her fear and helplessness, and almost moved his grip to George's neck.
“Never! I swear to God and all the saints that I never once ever—”
“You told me that you sell these women.”
“She wouldn't have it, for coin or not. She hates men, she does. Why, once I just suggested, friendly like, that we might share some ale, and that night I woke up to find her in here with a knife at my throat telling me to get no ideas. She can be ill-tempered and ornery that way. Hell of a thing, if you think about it. It's my property, isn't it? Who's she to—”
“If I find out that you did, if you ever insulted her or let others do so, I am going to come back.”
“If she says that happened, she is lying. I never—”
“Stay here. Do not come out until we are gone.”
George sank into a resentful sulk. “Aye, but for a man who claimed he didn't want to buy a woman, you've done so a bit too thoroughly to my sense of trade,” he muttered.
Rhys stepped out of the cottage, into the sun. There, with George out of sight, the fury began to thin, making some room in his mind for other things.
Like the stark realization of what he had just done.
He looked toward the tile works. Joan noticed him. She strode toward George's shack, but stopped halfway down the path. She stood there, regarding him curiously, with her hands on her hips, looking as ill-tempered as George had warned she could be.
He stared down at the dirty parchment in his hand. He could not believe he had just bought this. It had been a mindless impulse born of anger. In one moment he had been condemning such things, and in the next…
The rash act stunned him. Not just because he did not believe in freedom being bought and sold, but because of the responsibility and ties it entailed for him. He had avoided such chains. They interfered with a man living as he chose and doing what he must.
He should turn around and undo this. Now. At once.
Joan crossed her arms over her chest. She appeared very curious now, and a little suspicious.
He pictured her in the market and the stocks. He imagined her fending off George and his drunken friends. He saw images of her brave and broken.
He tasted her lips again, and the softness of her breast, and felt her body snuggled against him in the bed and pressed to his chest in an artless embrace.
He walked down the finger of land toward her, knowing he made the choice for many reasons, and that only half of them were rational and honorable. Nor did all of them have to do with protecting her.
Then again, the urge to protect was often coupled with the desire to possess.
She watched him come. She managed to be very lovely even when garbed in a clay-encrusted shift and a dirty kerchief. The peevish expression on her face did not strike him as especially becoming, however. He suspected it would not get friendlier very soon.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded when he drew near her.
“I came to purchase some of your crockery.”
Her expression softened. “You did?”
“Aye.”
“What did you want with George, then? I think that you also came to browbeat him about me, about what happened.” She did not sound as if she welcomed the interference.
“That is true. I also came for that. But things got a little tangled there.”
“How so?”
“I truly came to purchase some crockery.” He held up the parchment. “But as it happened, I bought you instead.”
CHAPTER 7
“YOU BOUGHT ME?”
“Not you, in truth. Only your indenture.”
“You can not do that.”
“I can, and I have.”
“Then go back there and undo it.”
“Nay. The bargain is struck.”
She thought tha
t her head would split. She pushed past him, hotly eyeing George's cottage. “When I am finished with that lazyboned, besotted weakling, there will be no bargain.”
He caught her arm and set her back a few paces.
She shook his grasp off and faced him. He returned a hard gaze that said she would not pass.
“Surely you did this as a jest.”
“Nay.”
“Then why?”
“I did not like the idea of you indebted to such a man in any way, let alone with your freedom.”
“A chivalrous impulse. How generous. Since you interfered fered to protect my freedom, give me my mark. When it is mine, I will make George pay me the wages he should.”
“I am not leaving you here. George sells these woman as whores. Eventually he would sell you that way, too.”
“He would not dare—”
“He has no scruples.”
“And your scruples are very confused, if you buy me to prevent my being bought by another.”
A vague acknowledgment of that passed in his eyes, but his firm expression did not soften. “Let us get your property. You are coming with me. My horse is behind the cottage.”
Vision half blurred with anger, she looked from him to the cottage. A terrible thought entered her fevered mind.
He had come here intending to take her away. It had been his real purpose. The indenture had only made it easier, and prevented her from having a choice. He had brought a horse to make the trip back to the city with her more convenient.
Why? He had recently been summoned by Mortimer. What if, in talking as men do, Rhys had mentioned the tiler named Joan. …
She forced down the fear that rose in a nauseous wave. What if he had? There were many Joans, and a poor one had no consequence. There was no reason for Mortimer to suspect that Joan the tiler was the same Joan who could bear witness to his worst crimes, and give substance to the rumors about them. Maybe he assumed that other Joan was dead anyway, and had forgotten about her.
She hoped that was so, but she could not count on it.
“Is your brother here?” Rhys asked.
Her heart skipped a beat. Many Joans, but fewer who had a brother named Mark. Fewer still who had walked here from the Welsh marches three years ago.
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